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Despite much progress in understanding the mechanisms of immunity, vaccines against major pathogens such as HIV and Plasmodium spp. remain elusive. In recent years, alternative antigen delivery systems have been actively investigated for greater efficacy, safety and ease of production. The most successful of these approaches has been virus-like particles (VLP) relying on self-assembly of viral structural proteins (HBV, papillomavirus). However, many pathogens do not produce such assemblies and there are limitations to the size of the antigens that can be incorporated into VLP scaffolds. The administration of antigens as particles is thought to have a number of advantages. Antigen presenting cells take up particulate antigens preferentially and traffic them to cellular compartments facilitating the production of antibody and cellular responses (see review by Rice-Ficht et al., Current Opinion in Microbiology, 13: 106-112, 2010).
There is a need for a versatile platform technology able to present antigens of various nature and size and induce robust humoral and cellular responses.